On the eve of his coronation as CEO of a wealthy dynasty, the groom was left stunned when his future father-in-law personally signed a formal complaint to have him thrown in jail
I. The Smell of Poverty and Rotten Ambition
In that poor city, where red-dirt alleys strained under year-round drizzles, there was a cramped corner so confined that a neighbor’s sigh could pierce right through the thin wooden partitions. There, the man had once been a nameless ghost, struggling through every meal of rice mixed with sweet potatoes alongside his loyal, devoted wife.
That wife possessed nothing save hands chapped by laundry chemicals and a back hunched over the years of carrying the burden of putting her husband through school. She was the very person who had sold the sole family wedding ring to afford the initial bribe that helped him secure a humble clerk position in a major corporation. In the leaky rented attic, when the oil lamp was about to burn out, she would sit patching his frayed-collar shirts, gently encouraging him that tomorrow would surely be better.
But as he step by step climbed the ladders of fame, that poor neighborhood gradually became a stain he wished to scrub clean from his memory.
The patched-shoulder shirt no longer matched the neatly pressed custom suits. The wife’s calloused hands suddenly turned into sharp thorns pricking his eyes every time he stepped back home after lavish banquets with the upper class. In his eyes, the devoted wife was now no different from a rusted anchor tightly gripping the feet of someone yearning to fly high.
His bottomless greed did not stop at the seat of sales manager. He aimed for the position of Chief Executive Officer—the seat of supreme power reserved only for those backed by influential forces. And the sole passport was the single daughter of the chairman of the most powerful conglomerate—a sharp, haughty woman carrying the inheritance bloodline of a colossal financial empire.
To clear the path for his metamorphosis, he did not hesitate to employ the most ruthless tactics.
II. The Silken Trap and False Honeymoon Nights
The divorce in the cramped attic took place without a loud sound, for the poor wife was already accustomed to endurance. When he tossed the divorce papers onto the rotten wooden table, rationalizing that her presence was hindering his legitimate career advancement, she merely remained silent. The deep eyes of that woman shed not a single tear; they were as flat as the surface of a stagnant pond before a massive storm.
— “Have you decided?” – her voice was light and dry.
— “Don’t be so selfish! You must understand me, right? Only when I succeed can you live better, rather than clinging to this rat hole forever?” – he sneered in rationalization, his shamelessness surpassing all limits of human morality.
She signed the paper decisively. Claiming not a penny of alimony, contesting no assets, for she knew better than anyone else that the wealth he was proudly boasting of did not truly belong to his honest sweat.
After casting away the devoted wife back to the poor street corner, he swiftly stepped into the world of velvet and silk. The prestigious young lady fell into his love net thanks to sweet words crafted by flawless deception. In elite banquets, he played the role of a talented businessman originating from a basic intellectual family, entirely concealing his impoverished past and the devoted wife who had cried her eyes dry for him.
The chairman of the conglomerate—an old fox in the business arena with eyes as sharp as a razor—initially showed reservation toward this future son-in-law. But his cunning cleverness, ambitious business plans, and flawless flattery gradually broke down the old man’s suspicion.
The decision to promote him to Chief Executive Officer of the conglomerate was announced to be officially unveiled at a gala ceremony hosted on the rooftop of the central high-rise building tomorrow.
III. The Eve of Coronation
Night. The breezy penthouse apartment overlooking the entire cityscape glittering with gorgeous lights resembled an artificial galaxy.
The man stood before the transparent tempered glass window, cradling an expensive glass of red wine in his hand, the corners of his lips curling into an utterly arrogant smile. Tomorrow, he would officially touch the crown of power. Millions of shares would fall under his manipulation, the colossal wealth of the financial dynasty would be legalized into his hands, and that poor, humble wife would merely be a fading speck of dust in a dark past.
On the long imported marble table, the portfolio for the CEO appointment was placed neatly and solemnly beside a collection of strategic financial contracts worth hundreds of billions of dong.
Those were contracts bearing his signature—contracts masked by sophisticated accounting tricks, gutting every cash flow of the conglomerate into shell companies secretly owned under his own name. He considered himself the smartest person under heaven, one who had deceived an entire powerful economic empire with the cunning brain of an impoverished, over-coming bookworm.
— “Everything is perfect. Absolutely perfect,” – he muttered to himself, tilting his head back to drain the glass of wine, feeling the bittersweet taste spread across his palate.
The phone on the table suddenly rang. A text message from an unknown number arrived: “Sweet fruits picked in haste are often very bitter; be careful not to choke on them.”
He sneered, tossing the phone onto the sofa with contempt. Some jealous and resentful person was surely bitter about his kite-in-the-wind rise. He didn’t bother to care. In the world of the strong, the envy of the defeated was merely meaningless background noise.
He turned and stepped into the steam bathroom, soaking in warm water scented with high-end fragrances, preparing for the best sleep of his life before stepping onto the pinnacle of fame.
IV. The Siren Tearing Apart the Night
Exactly at midnight, when the city sank deep into weary slumber, the quiet space of the high-rise floor was suddenly torn apart by piercing sounds.
Scree… e… ch!
Specialized investigative vehicles with flashing red and blue sirens continuously cast lights straight through the transparent tempered glass of the penthouse apartment. Dozens of economic police officers in stern uniforms stepped out of the high-speed elevator, their hurried, sharp footsteps echoing along the red-carpeted hallway.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Strong knocking rang out, carrying absolute authority that brooked no refusal.
The man just stepping out of the bathroom, draped only in a luxury fleece bath towel, frowned in annoyance. He cracked the door open, intending to scold whichever security guard dared disturb the future new director’s sleep, but what struck his eyes was not a familiar meek face.
It was the cold, pitch-black barrels of guns and solemn police uniforms.
— “You are… freeze! Do not move!” – the police officer’s voice rang out deep and decisive like a hammer blow crashing down on his head.
— “You… you’ve got the wrong person! Do you know who I am? Tomorrow I am the CEO of this conglomerate! You dare barge in here…” – he panicked and stepped back, his voice stuttering, his recent arrogance vanishing entirely, replaced by supreme terror gnawing at every cell.
— “We don’t have the wrong person,” – a steady, cold voice rang out from behind the line of police officers.
The crowd of police officers parted to both sides. A figure appeared in a dark suit, his face deeply lined with the wrinkles of time, yet his eyes were as sharp as a razor blade.
That was none other than the conglomerate’s Chairman—his future father-in-law.
V. The True Face Behind the Velvet Curtain
The man froze in place. His legs suddenly turned as soft as noodles, nearly collapsing onto the polished marble floor.
— “F… father…” – he swallowed a thick lump of saliva, his throat choked dry. — “Why are you here? What… what is the meaning of this?”
The Chairman stepped slowly into the apartment. He didn’t even glance at the man, strolling leisurely toward the desk where the appointment portfolio and guilty financial contracts lay exposed under the warm yellow light. He raised his hand to flip through each page, the corners of his lips curling into a fiercely bitter, sarcastic smile.
— “Do you truly think you are the cunningest old fox in this business arena?” – the Chairman looked up, staring straight at him with supreme contempt. — “Your every move, the black fund gutting tricks, the shell companies you set up to disperse assets… do you think I didn’t know, or did I pretend not to see?”
— “Father… what are you talking about? I… I am completely innocent! This is a misunderstanding…” – he cried out in panic, cold sweat pouring like a bath down his forehead.
— “A misunderstanding?” – the Chairman suddenly slammed the file dossier heavily onto the tabletop. The crisp, sharp sound echoed cleanly within the vast room. — “This is a comprehensive audit report compiled firsthand by the conglomerate’s financial security department in coordination with investigative agencies over the past six months. Under the guise of expanding the market, you embezzled amounts totaling hundreds of billions of dong.”
He stepped closer to him by a step, his eyes flashing with furious fire:
— “You thought I agreed to give my daughter to you because I admired your talent? Over decades, I’ve witnessed how many greedy climbers fall hard just like you. I turned a blind eye to let you step into this family simply because I needed the most perfect ‘scapegoat’ to stand up and bear all the financial violations the conglomerate needed to hide prior to the national audit!”
That statement crashed down on his head like a lightning bolt from a cloudless sky.
Everything he had ever dreamed of—the CEO chair, the colossal fortune, the ticket into high society—turned out not to be a reward for his cleverness. It turned out that from the very first moment he stepped into that house, he was merely a pawn in the hands of a ruthless old fox, fattened up solely to await the day of being sacrificed to the law to shield the monstrous violations of the entire conglomerate.
— “And…” – the Chairman pulled a neatly folded A4 paper from his jacket pocket, lifting it before his face. — “To legalize the legal proceedings, the person who directly signed the denunciation letter submitted to the economic crime investigation police agency… is none other than myself.”
At the bottom of the denunciation letter, the sharp, decisive signature of the Chairman stood out vividly like a death sentence stamped in vivid red.
VI. The Handcuffs Locking Down Ambition
The man staggered and collapsed onto the floor, clutching his head with both hands, his eyes bulging wide as he stared blankly into the empty void.
Illusions of power, selfish calculations, the supreme cruelty of abandoning the devoted wife to cling to elite family ties… all suddenly collapsed completely in a split second. The silken robe of wealth turned out to be nothing more than a set of shackles woven from deceit and conspiracy.
— “Carry out your duty!” – the police officer’s voice rang out coldly.
Click!
The freezing steel handcuffs locked tight around the hands that had once dreamed of grasping an entire realm. He was cuffed and dragged sluggishly down the long hallway, past glass panels reflecting the image of a pathetically failed wretch, disheveled in a tattered bath towel.
As the elevator doors closed, cutting off the view of the luxurious penthouse, the Chairman stood quietly beside the window frame, lighting an expensive cigar, exhaling a hazy plume of smoke into the cold night outside.
Down on the streets, traffic still bustled back and forth through those poor street corners, where the devoted wife was now sinking into peaceful slumber in a tiny rented attic, no longer burdened by the one who had traded his entire character to acquire a throne made of ashes.
